Friday, April 28, 2017

This stone at the St. Joseph Cemetery, adorned with a cross, honors of the memory of several members of the Linker family. The surname Linker is inscribed along the top of the stone.

The first line on the tombstone reads: Mother. George, James, and Andrew were all sons of John C. and Margaret Linker. According to records from St. Joseph Cemetery, George Linker died July 4, 1883. James Linker died January 2, 1883, and Andrew Linker died at the age of 4, in 1868. (Census records indicate that Mr. and Mrs. Linker had another son named Andrew Linker, born about 1870.) Sadly, the father of these three young men, John C. Linker, died in April of 1888 after being injured in a train accident. He was buried at Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery. John C. Linker's first wife was Mary. She died in 1854, and she was buried at Oakland Cemetery, though her first name also appears on the Linker family monument at St. Joseph Cemetery. Maggie most likely refers to the second wife of John C. Linker, whose name was Margaret, but sometimes she went by "Maggie." Margaret was listed on the U.S. Census record for the J. C. Linker family in 1870, but she died prior to 1888. Rest in peace, Linker family!

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

John Mulheran was born about 1831 in Ireland. The last 45 years of his life were spent in Sandusky, Ohio. Mr. Mulheran died on April 19, 1899. He left behind a widow and five sons. John Mulheran was buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio. An obituary for Mr. Mulheran appeared in the April 21, 1899 Sandusky Star Journal. The brief article stated that he was one of the most highly respected citizens of Sandusky.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

According to the Firelands Pioneer, Walter Freeman Stone was born in Ohio on November 18, 1822, his parents having been originally from the state of Vermont. Walter Stone studied law in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After practicing law in Cleveland for a time, Walter F. Stone moved to Sandusky, Ohio, in 1846, where he was in a law practice with A.W. Hendry. Later he practiced law with Ebenezer Lane and William G. Lane.From 1867 to 1871, Walter F. Stone served as Erie County Common Pleas Judge. From 1871 to 1874, Walter F. Stone was an Ohio Supreme Court Justice. In the fall of 1874, Judge Stone moved to California, due to ill health. Sadly, he died in California on December 23, 1874. He was survived by his wife, the former Cordelia Hitchcock, and three children. Judge Walter F. Stone's remains were brought back to Ohio, where he was buried in Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery.

Below is a closer view of the inscription on the monument which honors the memory of Judge Walter F. Stone, in the North Ridge section of Oakland Cemetery.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Edwin L. Ritter was born in Sandusky in 1874, to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ritter. Henry Ritter was the owner of a well known cigar business. Edwin was associated with his father in the cigar business. Edwin Ritter died unexpectedly on April 12, 1938. His wife, the former Anna Ferbach, survived her husband by several years. She died in 1954. Both Edwin and Anna Ritter were buried in Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

1) Pick one of your sets of great-grandparents - if possible, the one with the most descendants.2) Create a descendants list for those great-grandparents either by hand or in your software program.3) Tell us how many descendants, living or dead, are in each generation from those great-grandparents.4) How many are still living? Of those, how many have you met and exchanged family information with? Are there any that you should make contact with ASAP? Please don't use last names of living people for this - respect their privacy.5) Write about it in your own blog post, in comments to this post, or in comments or a Note on Facebook.===============

I chose to pick my great grandparents, Leroy and Ada (Steen) Parker, seen above at their 50th wedding anniversary celebration with their three surviving children in 1950. I made a list, by hand, of the descendants of Roy and Ada Parker.

They had four children, all now deceased.
They had twelve grandchildren, eight of whom are now deceased.
They had twenty-four great grandchildren, five of whom are deceased.
They had forty-five great great grandchildren, two of who are deceased.

I stopped at the generation of "great great grandchildren," because the family has grown so large, and spread across the country, that I do not know all of the ones in this generation, besides the Steen Parker line.

All of the people in the picture, Grandpa Roy and Grandma Ada, Uncle Glenn, Aunt Janet, and Uncle Paul, I knew. I talked most probably to Uncle Glenn's wife, Aunt Florence, who told me a lot of family stories. And Grandma Ada left her family notebooks to my mom, and is one of my main inspirations for loving family history! I have talked with almost all of the grand children and great grandchildren of Grandma and Grandpa Roy, especially at family gatherings, weddings, showers, and funerals. The stories of the old family farm in Perkins Township are especially precious to me

....as well as the stories of Grandma and Grandpa's days at the Cedar Point amusement park.

Thanks for this fun trip down memory lane, Randy! As I was thinking about the causes of death of so many family members, it made me sad to think of how many were lost to disease and tragedies. It is so good to keep the memories of these dear ones alive!

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Douglas Austin Wright was the son of Jabez Wright (1848-1912) and Isabelle Kirby (1849-1924.) He was born in 1869. He was named for his paternal grandfather, who was also named Douglas Wright. His middle name was the first name of his maternal grandfather, Capt. Austin A. Kirby. Douglas A. Wright was a dentist, and he had a dental office in Huron, Ohio. He died at the age of 65, on December 13, 1934. He was buried in Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery. Kathryn E. McCardle married Douglas A. Wright in 1891. After Dr. Douglas Wright's death, Kathryn remarried, to Hugo Kuehn. When Kathryn died in 1962, she was buried next to her first husband at Oakland Cemetery. An inscription of the joint tombstone of Douglas A. and Kathryn E. Wright Kuehn reads:

Sunday, April 2, 2017

When I was looking for something else, I ran into this interesting article about a Cooking School held in Sandusky in November of 1939. The Cooking School was sponsored by the Sandusky Register and the Sandusky Star-Journal newspapers. Miss Mary Ann Kidd was the instructor, and sessions were held at the auditorium of the Sandusky Senior High School, now Adams Junior High.

An article which appeared in the November 18, 1939 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal listed the winners of the prizes that were won on the last evening of the Cooking School classes. Included in the list was the name of my great grandmother, Irene Larkins, who lived at 1309 Shelby Street. Gram Irene won a room of wallpaper, provided by the Brinnon Wallpaper and Paint Company. I never heard which room she had wallpapered! What a delight to read this article about Great Grandma Irene winning a prize!

My beloved Gram Irene had a full life, but it was filled with a lot of loss of love and loss of dear family members. In 1939, she did not know that in the next few years her only daughter, as well as her father would pass away from serious illness. Gram Irene was married several times. There are so many questions I wish I had asked her! Mom always told me that the person to whom Gram Irene was married when Grandma Doris was born was not the biological father of Doris. So who was? It may have been a man named Hal McIntyre, but I have no idea of where he lived, or how to spell his last name, or when he was born and died. Why didn't Gram Irene marry Hal? Later, Gram Irene was known as Mrs. George Shirey (per the 1930 Census.) Mom always said that George was the love of her life....so why did that marriage end? So, so many questions! Below is a document I created a few years ago, with dates, if known, of the marriages of my great grandmother Irene. I loved her so, and I know she loved me. She had a stroke when I was a little girl, and so we did not have nearly as many heart-felt talks as I would have liked! I include this document not to dishonor my sweet Gram Irene, but to help fill in the gaps for future researchers who may wish to know what I learned in my genealogical diggings.